Singapore Taxi

“Are people always burning stuff by the side of the road?” I asked my cab driver as we took off to take in the Gardens By The Bay light show.

People burning stuff on nature strips in a city renowned for it’s cleanliness was genuinely unexpected.

“Is for the dead,” the taxi driver explained. He spoke perfectly understandable English, but that’s not to say it was the Queen’s own. The one unsettling thing he did was insisting on making eye contact when he spoke, and sometimes insisting on making very long sentences. “One a year they do this to feed the hungry dead.”

“When I die I’ll expect to be fed more than once a year,” I joked – or at least I thought I did.

“No, just now is festival. Just now,” he frowned at me like I was a very silly boy, before glancing briefly back at the road.

Apparently, it’s a Buddhist and Taoist festival. He went on to tell me there are four main religions in Singapore: Buddism, Islam, Hinduism and – he’d paused as though searching for the right word – “the one with the Jesus…Christianity.”

Then he asked me if I believed in ghosts.

“Only the ones I’ve met,” I told him with a grin. Strike two. “Not really,” I corrected myself.

“You believe in heaven?” he asked. “When you die?”

Oddly, we were kind of on the same wavelength.

“So your car, is it in kilometres or miles?” I asked, shaking my head no but for the most part ignoring his question while looking firmly at the speedo and attempting pointedly to change the topic.

“Kilometers. You know, the people in Siberia,” he said, again making way too much eye contact as the conversation careened in much the same way the taxi was now dancing across lanes, “they dig down twelve miles until they couldn’t go any further. You have the internet? You look it up. They dig and find nothing.”

It occurred to me at one point as we shot along the three or four lanes of meandering highway he seemed to prefer whichever was the inside lane. I wanted to ask him if perhaps he was entered in the upcoming Singapore F1 Grand Prix. It wasn’t just the professional lines he was taking into the corners either.

“And the roadsigns?” I said. “They’re in miles per hour, are they?”

“No, no, no,” he said. “All kilometers. “They put a camera down and saw nothing. Then they put a microphone down and you know what they heard?”

“I’m only asking because there seems to be a fairly dramatic difference between the numbers on your dashboard and the numbers out there on the signs.”

“Moaning and screams. Where do you think they dug to?” he asked, still looking squarely at me. It was now his turn to ignore me as the car again edged its way into still another lane. We were just lucky there were so many available. Conveniently nice wide roads in Singapore.

“North Korea?” I suggested. Even fearing for my life I still manage to wheel them out, but alas, another zinger lost in translation.

“They hear moans,” he said, “all the way in the middle of the Earth. I think that is hell they found. I am not a Catholic, but it makes you wonder, eh. Yes? You look it up. It’s on the internet.”

And then he called me an idiot. At least I think he did. He sort of did, said he wasn’t calling me personally an idiot, and then called me an idiot again. This went on for most of the remainder of the trip.

“You think about it,” he demanded, shaking his head and looking over his shoulder at the road just long enough to dip the wheel to the right and avoid a truck which was perhaps more closely adhering to the speed limit. “I am not trying to make you a Christian, but I think you must be idiot if you not think about it.”

His customer service was certainly up to speed with his driving – a nice distraction from the possibility of testing out which of us was right about the afterlife.

If anything I grinned even harder. Not for the first time, I think I might have actually laughed out loud.

“I don’t mind,” he said finally. “There is a high probability you are a good man. You are a happy man. You smile a lot. You laugh a lot. I think you are a good person.”

“Thank you,” I grinned. Despite subconsciously checking my seatbelt every thirty seconds or so, and consciously looking for airbag stickers, I was actually having a wonderful time, although I’d pretty much stopped talking in sentences now and was trying to keep my answers short to give him more time looking at the road.

“But you are idiot if you don’t think about it,” he repeated. “I am not a Christian. I have not been in a church ever, but you be a idiot to die and not think about it.” He was staring pointedly at me again, and again we moved into another lane. Not all the way or anything overly committal like that. Half a car at most before we started to drift back and mercifully pulled up at a red light.

“I’ve thought about it,” I assured him, enjoying being still for a minute. If I was the praying type I’d have been muttering in tongues by now.

I wondered if I should mention we were sitting at a green light waiting for it to change but decided in favour of postponing death for another minute or two and enjoy our conversation a bit longer.

“Maybe you leave my taxi and you think about what I’ve told you,” he said. “Maybe you learn something from me.”

“I will think about what you’ve said,” I assured him. I knew I’d be thinking about this wonderful cab ride for a long, long time to come. The light flicked red and then green again, and this time he decided to move forward.

“Maybe you learn something from me,” he repeated as he pulled up at our stop, and added generously, “and maybe I will learn something from you.”

He didn’t sound convinced about that last point, but I already had a suggestion.

“Like how to use the indicator?” I suggested, handing him some money.

Despite ducking, turning and weaving through Singapore, and even taking a couple of actual corners, I’d arrived unscathed at our stop with no thanks at all to any of the car’s many, and presumably pristine, signalling devices.

He paused as he handed me my change, looking confused and answering wonderfully-

“What’s an indicator?”

Hands down scariest best taxi ride of my life.

After a wonderful flight with these guys on Scoot we arrived in Singapore from the Maldives. I love they call themselves Scooties. If you haven’t tried Scoot yet you should. Planes are nice and new and comfortable – and I’m a fat man saying that.

IBIS Bencoolen was wonderful. Great location and noodle soup for breakfast. Also, wonderfully, they have a system of reusable glass bottles instead of plastic ones – because they’re about doing their bit to save the planet.

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When you eat with bloggers.

If there was more fun to be had from funny menus I would be very surprised. Loved messaging Tracey I was about to have some hor fun in Singapore

More street in Chinatown.

A street in Chinatown with lots of mannequins hanging off the roof.

Chinatown. Loved this shop front. Loved the stuff in it too but they wouldn’t let me take any photos. Something about preferring I use money.

A street in Chinatown.

The Organised Housewife – love this woman. She had sunscreen for me because I forgot mine. Aloe Vera because I forgot mine. Leant me her charger because I forgot to charge mine. You rock, Kat!

Babymac bringing all of the styling to Singapore. The camera loves you, baby!

Me, on the other hand…

Every bar has a personality

A welcome beer break as the two groups caught up

Singapore is the perfect melding of old and new

Even in the day time these manmade trees are impressive

The art in Gardens by the bay is impressive

I have no idea what this place was called but it’s right there with Gardens by the Bay and it is like a hawkers market.

So much yum. Lots of ummm too, but mostly yum. And so cheap

This guy made me a fantastic chicken dish.

Came with a broth too. Which I spilt all over myself on the way back to the table

Fortunately we’d ordered a tower or two of pain relief for our tired feet. Question – where are these things in Australia? There is a definite need.

70c sticks of stuff – yes please

We shared a lot of the things, including stingray. Was very adventurous, although no one came back to the table with frog.

After dinner it was off to the show

You’ve probably seen these sorts of images online. One of the highlights of Singapore. Great to lie under and sober up to.

Purty

They’re synchronised to some great tunes – lots of different routines apparently, although we only got to see one.

All of the colours.

I love something made just for the fun of it – that’s art

More purty

Went to the Marina Bay Sands the next day. Local cabby called it the Titanic.

Found ourselves a karaoke bar because that’s what Jen & Lou from Paging Fun Mums and I do when we catch up. Sam from School Mum joined us and boy can that girl sang.

My drinking/singing buddies. Polished off another tower.

Loved this building. No reason. Actually, that’s not true. It was probably the tower of beer. The third one, I suspect.

Bed was so comfortable I stripped it looking for brands and hints. Labels just said IBIS. Dammit. Was like sleeping on a cloud.

This guy. He organised my lunch and my roaming internet so he gets much praise. Seriously though, play your cards right and they give you a mobile internet phone thing to cart around Singapore with you. Such a fantastic service.

My photos pretty much universally suck, so , with his permission, I’ve included a gallery of David’s (from Suburbly). I’ll add to it as he publishes more.

My group didn’t make it to Little India

more Little India I didn’t see

Apparently this guy was sew nice

All of the gods

All of the garlands

All of the fabrics

More stores. I suspect the other group did a lot more shopping than we did.

I wasn’t here but doesn’t look especially Indian

Love how they can make a stampeding elephant look fun

Only SGD$35 to get into the park. Only SGD$70 for all four parks. Bargain. Love this photo. I actually got sack wacked by a water sprout. Didn’t catch it on camera, but it was still tingling when this photo was taken.

They have an area of theme parks – four of them all connected by walkways, restaurants and shops. We checked out Adventure Water Park for a couple of hours. Because it was hot.

Disaster! Totally got sack wacked by a water sprout.

Was given this bag by Sierra Australia & New Zealand – thank god. Was brilliant. My suitcase had my clothes but this bag had my life.

Marina Bay Sands is scary. So high. Have I mentioned I have a thing about heights. Fortunately they’ve thought of this and offer beer. The SGD$20 it costs you to go up the lift to the scary bit you can trade for a beer. I did. Immediately.

Highrise buildings all the way to the horizon. Something you don’t see in little ol’ Gympie. Or Brisbane for that matter.

Took this photo with my eyes shut. Was impressed with myself. That’s the Gardens By The Bay down there.

Lovely old architecture. Can imagine them saying, “You know what this place needs? A balcony in the foyer.

I made this face before we saw the menu

We’d already started on a jug of beer, so we ordered the vegetarian spring rolls and left

This one I could explain away as bad english translation

This one, not so much

Nup

The next restaurant looked much more enticing

Especially with a menu like this – sex sells people

We ate a rice dish, a noodle dish and a prawn dish. The garlic prawn dish was very hot and we suspect had a lingering effect. I was glad it was a night flight and most people were asleep and not using the bathroom. Although who knows what was in those vegetable spring rolls. Either way, was concerned I was going to have to test out our Bupa travel insurance – something you always need to buy but never want to actually need

Is this my safe place where I can mention it got so bad, with the trots, jet lag and tiredness I accidentally put coldsore cream on a haemorrhoid? Hope so lol It was really good food…

…although maybe not this good.

The face you make when you’re on the verge of being late for the airport, there’s no taxis and you’re starting to think you’ve had too many towers.

We did make it after all that. Thankfully. Time to Scoot home.

Can’t seem to link in galleries, so I’ll add them here for anyone who wants to check things out:

Although I somehow still managed to spend about AUD$1000 (those towers of beer don’t come cheap) this trip was totally gifted to me and the other bloggers so of course I’ve shamelessly plugged the companies involved in the hope they decide to do this again – please decide to do this again. Nearly a week in the Maldives and Singapore – you totally would too!